| Ruth 1:1-16 - 4th October 2008
Andrew Lim
The Book of Ruth is one of the greatest love stories of all time
the book continues to echo through the ages
Perhaps there is no book in the Bible / which shows more clearly
the providence of God
through the apparent trivial incidents of our daily lives
in order to bring blessings to our lives
and lasting glory to His name
Only two books of the Bible / are named after women / Ruth and Esther
and both are about God’s providence
To this day / each time the Jews celebrate the Feast of Pentecost
when the crops are gathered in / this little book is read
This lovely little story was set in Bethlehem
several centuries before this little village was immortalized
by the birth of our Saviour
This is part of God's inspired word
and the Holy Spirit has many lessons to teach
any one who will look into it and submit himself to it
This book is three thousand years old and yet it is as contemporary as ever
We go through the same experience today as Ruth went through
dark disillusionment / shattered dreams / haunting grief and fear
and dreams and hope / and joy and celebration
This little book begins with poverty / famine and death
and ends with plenty / harvest and birth
It is story with a great redemption theme
If your Bible is opened at the Book of Ruth / you’ll find
that the Book that comes just before the Book of Ruth / Book of Judges
Now / what does the very last verse of the Book of Judges say?
Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel
every man did what was right in his own eyes”
This was among the bleakest / darkest days in all of Israel's history
circa 1500 to 1100 B.C
It is a dark period in the history of God’s people
If there is one period that hugely grieves the heart of God this is it
God’s righteousness is failing / His glory is fast fading
- it has come to be called the “dark ages” in Hebrew history
And living in a time such as ours today
from the evidences we see all around us / it seems
like we’re plummeting down into such a dark age / if we aren’t there already
This is why I am moved to preach from this book
- and especially as we approach Christmas
- for we need to be reminded / that even in the worst of times
God is doing a hidden work of deliverance and providence
If you’re wondering where God is / in our dark world
where evil seems to be the order of the day / read this book
If you’ve been afflicted by one failure / one grief after one another
and you’re beginning to suspect that God has lost control of the world
- read this book
If you’re wondering if it pays to go on being a person of integrity
when everyone else is cutting corners / this is the book to read
If you’re wondering / whether anything significant
can come out of your ordinary / puny / little life / read this book
You know / we live in a world where dignity and beauty is all but gone
And I think that the God-forsaken TV program Jackass
is as good as any program / to serve as an accurate social barometer
to indicate where our culture is heading
And it tells us that we live in a culture
where dignity and beauty has all but eroded
Living in a culture such as this / Ruth comes along
and she gives us a model of dignity and an unshaken devotion
to those things / which are highest / and noblest in life
This lovely little story is set in Bethlehem
several centuries before this little village becomes immortalized
by the birth of our Saviour
When the story unfolds we find the people of God
living in a land that has been reduced to one huge wasteland
dominated by dust not growth
Some of you have read John Steinbeck’s book Grapes of Wrath
set in the depression years
Reading this passage always reminds me of such a scene
- the streams dry up / the crops fail
- the sheep are dying on the bare hillsides
- the cattle languishes in the fields
Now / just what is happening here? It is this: God is speaking!
Of course / when God speaks to us / He speaks to us through His Word
but quite often / He speaks to us circumstantially
- through the events and circumstances in our lives
Here in our story / God is wanting to get His people’s attention
by stopping them in their tracks
- the people have turned their backs on God
- they have come to embrace the gods of the Cannanites
- they’ve adopt the degrading practice of religious prostitution
until in the end / one short sentence sums them up
“And every man did / what was right in his own eyes”
Of course / when God speaks to us / He speaks to us through His Word
but quite often / He speaks to us circumstantially
- through the events and circumstances in our lives
Sometimes God has to stop us in our tracks
before we will begin listening
And often He stops us in our tracks / through the circumstances of life
And we need to discern / what he might be saying to us
through what’s happening in our lives
What are you going through right now?
Is there an affliction / an illness / an accident / a financial crisis
a loss of some kind / a crisis in a relationship
I am not suggesting / that each time we are faced with a crisis
that God must be necessarily punishing us
But I will say that when things like that confront us /we need to wake up
and ask God / to help us discern / what He might be saying to us
We need to say:
“Lord / how have I been unclean?” / “How have I grieved You?”
Maybe there is something in your life / He wants to break
an addiction / an idol in your life you’ve come to worship
an unforgiving heart / a jealousy / a bitterness
a relationship He cannot bless
Sometimes God has to break us / in order to make us
Just what road are you taking in this season of your life?
Remember / Proverbs says: “There’s a way that seem right to a man
but the end of it / is death” 14:1
In a larger scale / the same happens to a nation from time to time
And this / is the situation in Israel / as we begin the story of Ruth
The Lord has come to afflict the people / to stop them in their tracks!
And the discipline comes
in the form / of the lack of bread / right there at Bethlehem
This is an irony because the word “Bethlehem” means “Granary”
the “House of Bread”
Just fancy that / in Bethlehem / the House of Bread / there is no bread
Surely it is God’s undoing
And the book opens by telling us simply
that there is a certain man / by the name of Elimelech
And Elimelech would stand there / everyday / at the close of the day
and he would look out in despair / upon the dustbowl
and he sees nothing / but depression and desolation everywhere
And he begins to think / of emigrating from the land
Should he leave the land / or should he stay back?
He tosses the question over and over again in his mind
Now / for you and me / a decision to emigrate to another country
may not have all the serious implications
it will have / for a devout Jew / living in those days
When you and I decide to emigrate to another land / to be sure
- there are family ties that will be broken
- there are political / social / cultural factors to be considered
But for a Jew / living on the Promise Land
the decision to leave the land / is not a simple question of emigration
- it is first and foremost / an important religious question
It is something he undertakes
at a grave risk and danger / to the well-being of his soul
Because to a Jew / the land / is part of the covenant blessing
which he inherits from his father Abraham
The Tabernacle the place where God dwells with the people
and therefore the place / where God is to be worshipped
- is in the land
To leave the land amounts to leaving the place where God lives
So Elimelech goes on tossing the idea of emigration / in his mind
And as the story moves on / we find that in the end
- unbelief creeps into his heart / and he suffers a failure of nerve
- he loses faith in a God Who can provide for him
And he gets the family to pack up their bags and they emigrate
And of all places / he decides to emigrate to Moab
on the other side of the Dead Sea
- the land of the heathens and the pagans
- worshippers of the idol / Chemosh
As a race / the people of Moab had a bad beginning
It is a race which began / in an incestuous relationship
between Lot and his daughters / Gen 19:29-38
The Moabites had always opposed Israel
- they had refused them bread and water
during their Exodus from Egypt
- they had hired Balaam to curse the Israelites
And yet Elimelech makes his way into the well-watered fields of Moab
and he says to himself / “Surely only good can come to us now
The granaries here in Moab are filled / and there is plenty to eat”
Now / of course there is no famine in Moab
But Moab is never given to the children of Israel
Moab is never the promised land
From the flow of the whole story
it does not appear like Elimelech and Naomi have consulted God
in their decision to move to that land
The famine strikes terror / in the heart of this family
but it does not inspire their hearts / to trust God
It is significant that the word of God says
“And they came to the country of Moab and lived there / 1:2
It is bad enough / even to look for a temporary refuge in the land of Moab
but to decide to take up permanent residence there
shows us / that he is totally out of step of the will of God
And so it isn’t long / before tragedy strikes
Elimelech meets with an untimely death
And he never made it back / to the land of promise
He dies in the land of Moab
It has sometimes been said that the prodigal son
will not remain in the far country for any longer than he needed to be there
- the pigsty is only a temporary experience
But Elimelech dies in the pigpen of Moab / He goes out in silence
After the second chapter of the book / he drops out of sight altogether
he is never mentioned again / not in this book of Ruth
nor in anywhere else / in the entire Scripture
He seeks for a new land / but the land becomes his grave
I wonder if there is anyone here this morning
who is faced with the same temptations / Elimelech faced
Perhaps you are facing a crisis / a crossroad of life
and you’re not sure if God may be trusted to deliver you
and you are tempted to take matters into your own hands
And I am here to urge you / Don’t do it!
Running ahead of God always brings a child of God to grief!
Rather / trust God to deliver you
The Lord says in His Word
“Cast your care upon me / for I care for you”
“I will never leave you nor forsake you”
So Elimelech dies / and Naomi his wife / is left with her two sons
Mahlon and Chilon
Now / except for their names / we know very little of her two boys
But their names tell us a good deal about them
Mahlon means “sick” / and Chilion means “pining”
- none of them could have been a robust picture of health
And after their father’s death / the two sons take for themselves
wives / of the women of Moab
the name of one is Orpah / the other / Ruth
Not only do the parents emigrate to a place God didn’t want them in
but their sons are married to Moabites
- a people who do not know God
This is specifically prohibited in the Mosaic law
“You shall not make marriages with them
your daughters / you shall not give to his sons
nor his daughter / shall you take for your son” / Deut 7:3
But though they’re Moabites / they’re good girls
And Naomi sets about picking up the broken threads of life
And we may be sure she is looking forward
to enjoying the coming of grandchildren from her sons
But tragedy strikes again / and a very savage blow it is
Both of her sons die / taken away / quite suddenly from her
So that now / she is bereft of her husband / and of her two sons
She is utterly destitute
The entire family line blotted out / Surely a calamity to the Jews
They run away to find life / but they come face to face with death
First there is one widow / now there are three
Naomi is left with nothing / no social security / no financial provision
nothing in Moab / utterly nothing / except for three graves
The first five verses of the book of Ruth tells us a story of displaced people
It is never a delightful story when a person walks out of the place
where she belongs / into a place / where she does not belong
And it makes no difference
whether he is Abraham going into Egypt / to escape the famine
or / the prodigal son going to the far country
and into the face of a famine there
there is always trouble / for the displaced person
Let us be warned / the story of a displaced person is always a tragic story
People in places / where they ought not to be
People in relationships / they ought not to be in
People in pursuit of an ambition / they do well to forsake
Did you know that the name Elimelech / has a great meaning
It actually means “My God is King”
Here is a man whose name means “My God is King”
but by his action / he has denied his name
By his action Elimelech is saying:
“God is not my King / He cannot supply my every need
His grace is not sufficient for me”
You may be terrified / by the situation you now find yourself in
- your financial situation / may be a worry
- you may be worried / about your career
- you may be concerned / about our children's future
- some of you have failing health / due to age
In a time like this it is easy to be tempted to ask
“Is God really King / Can He supply all my needs?”
But if you take matters into our own hands /and run ahead of God
you’ll be making the same mistake / Elimelech makes here
- and you may have to reap some very dire consequences
Remember / the Word of God says:
“There is a way that seems right to a man / but the end of it is death”
When Elimelech leaves Bethlehem to escape the famine
he walks out of God’s will
And when a person walks out of God’s will
He walks without God’s protection
But notice something else here:
The step Elimelech takes / cost him / not only his own life
but those of his two sons as well
There is not a single one of us here / who lives to himself/herself
People are either better or worse / for having met us
Our disobedience carries with it / awful repercussions for other people
- especially for those in our immediately family
There was an old minister who at the prime of his life / when he was 28
felt the call of God to go into the ministry / but went into business instead
Many years later / he finally surrendered himself to God
and went into the ministry
But whenever he spoke of his family
there was always / the mist of tears in his eyes
And with sadness in his eyes / he would always say
“My oldest boy is the price I pay for my disobedience
- today / he is so very far / from the Lord”
In a way that I don’t fully understand / none of us live to ourselves
our actions / affect people for good or evil
To be sure God does forgive our sins / and He heals
but it remains true / that there are some sins
whose consequences are never fully eradicated
Samson’s hair grew again / but his eyes were never restored
David was forgiven / but his son was taken away from him
Now / back to our story
As the days wore on / Naomi has had time to ponder over her life
And as she ponders / her spiritual sight becomes clearer each day
Perhaps she says to herself: “Maybe I have had little to eat in Israel
but there / in Bethlehem / I was in the Lord’s will
I fled from the famine
when I should have waited to understand the Lord’s hand”
And so with each passing day Naomi’s spiritual sight becomes more clear
You know something
Naomi has to come to the end of herself / to find herself
She had to be stripped of all those things she holds dear
before God can step in / and touch her life
And it is at this point
that she hears a report / that the famine in Bethlehem / is now over
Bethlehem / the “House of Bread” / is now filled with bread again
And Naomi resolves to return home
Now / this is so reminiscent of the prodigal son in the far country
- it is only when the prodigal son remembers
that there is enough bread to spare in his father’s house
that he makes up his mind to return home
But what is Naomi to do / with her two daughters-in-law ?
Their hearts have now become knitted to hers
by the common sorrow / which has overtaken them
The day finally comes / for Naomi to leave the land she’s lived for ten years
The three women / make their way to the borders of Moab
to where the river Jordan divides the two countries
And there at the border / Naomi pronounces a blessing on each of them
and she tells them to return to their own homes
v. 8,9 / “Go back / each of you to your mother’s home
May the Lord show kindness to you
as you have shown to your dead and to me
May the Lord grant you / that each of you may find rest
(“rest” = “manuha”) / in the home of another husband”
As I read these words / I imagine a most touching and moving scene
Three widows at the crossroads of life’s decision
- there is much weeping / much passionate embraces
- a most touching scene
Ruth and Orpah are reluctant to leave their mother-in-law
and they pledge their desire to be with her
“We will go back with you to your people” / v.10
But Naomi persuades them against following her
She has her reasons / and she has their best interest in her heart
“Why would you come with me / What can I offer you / Even if I had a
husband tonight / and then gave birth to sons would you wait until they
grew up?/ Would you remain unmarried for them? / vv.11-14
Indeed / how can the two girls / find favour in Bethlehem ?
They have no property / no dowry
They live at a time / when a woman can only be save
if she is under the protection of a husband
Their speech and their manners / will surely betray them as foreigners
and they will be despised and rejected
This is indeed a momentous decision for the two girls
It is a decision that will join them / or sever them for all eternity
They will have to choose / this day / whom they will serve
But as the Word of God reveals to us / this crisis is to bring out
the real character between these two young women
It reveals for us / the underlying difference between Ruth and Orpah
It is a difference which even Naomi did not fully realise before
Scripture puts it short and blunt / v.14
“And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye but Ruth clung to her
Orpah contemplates the picture of her future / as Naomi paints it
- she senses the difficulties and the uncertainties
and the possible humiliation in an unknown land
- and she realises / that it will be much safer for her
if she remained in her native land
And so she turns to her mother-in-law / gives her a fateful kiss
turns around / and walks slowly back / from where she had come
And with each step she takes
we see a shrinking figure / moving eastward into Moab
Perhaps she looks back a couple of times
and sees the two waiting women / diminishing out of her sight
and out of her life into an existence she will never come to know
The name “Orpah” means “youthful” / it speaks of immaturity
If she has come to hear of Naomi’s God / the roots have not gone very deep
She is like those who receives the Word with gladness
but it takes no root in her heart
For a season it springs up / and flourishes
but under the hot sun of testing / it withers away and dies
The life of Orpah should tell us
that we should never confuse emotion with devotion
Orpah is emotional / she is touched
She is ready to shower kisses upon Naomi
but the prospect of an uncertain land
chilled whatever enthusiasm she has
Of course our relationship with God as an emotional aspect to it
we do experience deep joy and security in our hearts
But emotions change as quickly as the weather
Devotion / on the other hand / is the fruit of conviction
- it ripens in all the winds and weathers
So we see Orpah / passing away from the pages of history
She goes back to idolatry / and she is heard of no more
- no word of commendation / nor condemnation is spoken
Like Judas / she simply “went to her place”
The very silence of Scripture is eloquent / to speak of a life of tragedy
But it is precisely at this point that we see Ruth’s supreme moment
Naomi tells Ruth: “Look / your sister-in-law is gone back
to her people / and her gods / Go back with her” / v.15
Can you not see that Ruth has an added disadvantage
She has / not only the words of her mother-in-law / to struggle with
but she has the example / of her sister-in-law to confuse her
Maybe Naomi senses / that Ruth really desires to accompany her
but she feels / she has to make one final attempt / to “shoo” her away
So she says: “Look / your sister-in-law is gone back to her people
and her gods / Go back with her”
Now / isn’t it odd / that Naomi should induce Ruth
to return to the heathen idolatry of Moab
It could be that she is testing Ruth’s faith
If her faith is genuine / then she could not be driven back to idolatry
But if it were not / there is no reason for her to continue with Naomi
By this time / Ruth knows / that by following Naomi to Israel
she will have nothing to gain / and everything to lose
in a country that has been the sworn enemy of her own for years
Will she now turn back / and run after her sister-in-law / it isn’t too late!
What will she say? / * This is what she says: 1:16-17 *
“Entreat me not to leave you / Or to turn back from following after you
For wherever you go I will go / And wherever you lodge I will lodge
Your people shall be my people / And your God my God.
Where you die I will die / And there will I be buried
The LORD do so to me / and more also
If anything but death parts you and me”
These words she says / on that fateful day by the river is forever remembered
They have been immortalised in music / enshrined in poetry and prose
There are many beautiful passages in literature / where love is affirmed
but none can surpass Ruth’s avowal of love to Naomi
- it is simply sublime
On our wedding day Gloria took these words / memorised them
and said these words to me / as part of her marriage vow
If a monument is erected for Ruth
these words would be a fitting inscription
and they deserve to be chiselled in marble
Her words do not simply constitute a literary gem
They reveal / a noble character of the highest calibre
And she confirmed those words with an oath / she never broke / v.17
We need to note that this is not an impulsive decision
hastily made in a moment charged with emotion
And we know this because her words reveal to us
that it is a calm / settled / deliberate / and determined decision
- possibly made sometime before
There in one single move / she has separated herself from her people
from her homeland / and from her former gods
In that one statement / Ruth makes five commitments
One / she is prepared to leave her own family and homeland
to go to a an unknown land of new customs and language
Two / she is prepared for a life of widowhood and childlessness
because are no more man left in Naomi’s line to give her
Three / she will share the same deprivation Naomi goes through
she will live under the same roof
and eat the same humble pie with Naomi
Four / she makes a commitment never to return home to her own land
She says “Where you die I will die and there be buried” / v. 17
But the fifth is the most staggering of all her commitments
She makes a spiritual commitment / “Your God will be my God” / v. 16
She will leave the idolatry of Moab to put her trust in Jehovah
the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob
This is especially staggering
when you think that just three verses before this
Naomi has just confessed that the hand of her God
has gone out against her / v. 13
“The hand of the Lord has gone forth against me”
Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase “God has dealt me a hard blow”
Naomi has experienced nothing but bitterness from the hand of God
And yet Ruth forsakes her own Moabite deity
and makes the God of Israel her God
She makes this commitment with absolutely no evidential reason
that this God of Israel may be trusted
Ruth is a woman of faith
Ruth portrays in her life / an unshakable faith
Orpah turns back / takes the road for Moab / and she is never hear of again
she disappears forever / into oblivion
Ruth turned her back too
but she turned her back upon the land of Moab
went into the boat / crossed the Jordan
and began her long walk / up the steep narrow ascent
through the Judean hills / walking into Bethlehem
and walking into the fabric of human history
From that day on / many a mother would come to name her baby Ruth
Ruth’s faith is rewarded by God a hundredfold
She becomes the mother of a son / from whose seeds
our Lord / Jesus Christ the Messiah / has come into the world
She trusted the Lord / and the Lord shows Himself
kind and merciful to her
beyond anything she could have hoped or dreamed
And so it will be with you / if you / like Ruth
will set your heart on trusting God
you will ultimately come to a good place
Ella Wheeler Wilcox has a poem / called 'Tis the Set of the Sail
One ship sails East, And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow, 'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales, That tells the way we go.
Like the winds of the sea Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life, 'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal, And not the calm or the strife
______________________________________________________________
|
